Catching up.

I've had this arm length to do list for a few months now... all I seemed to be doing was adding to it and this week I've finally managed to tackle it.

My bird nerd self has also been released on the world once more and they have taken over my creative life. Firstly I've been desperately trying to develop a looser style to doodle ideas with. I tend to work fast but with a lot of detail, at times this can end with what looks extremely scruffy. Of course doodles are scruffy but I wanted it to feel better and not leave me cringing every time I flicked through a sketch book. This is what happened.

A chat with my OH lead to the idea of taken a traditional scene of a blue tit on a milk bottle and replacing the bottle with a coke bottle. It was very quick and not perfect and... glass bottles are not a simple task! But I'm really pleased with the style I managed and have been keeping the feel throughout my work this week.

I also got captured by finches (one of my favourite types of bird!) It all started with the idea of making a repeat pattern involving colourful finches... that then started me off drawing many many finches... I'm now creating a flock of over 30 finches!

The first image shows the draft idea sketches I made, they ended up working so well I've had lots of trouble recreating them!

The finches featured include the zebra finch, owl finch, gouldian finch, bullfinch, goldfinch, star finch, java finch and strawberry finch, in case anyone was interested and nerdy like myself!

This is where things got tricky... I started transferring designs to watercolour paper to try painting them... I really didn't like how they were turning out and got quite grumpy at them for not following in the footsteps of there predecessors :P
So instead I got out my bristol board and began making more lineart for more finches, this time I plan to colour them with coloured pencil like the original idea.

As you can see here I have around 20 finches to colour! And the added flying rat with balloons... you know, because who wouldn't?

It's been an extremely hectic week with lots of the boring paperwork involved but I've also managed to get two new designs up on redbubble!!

First design is a remake of my British garden birds, I took a lot of time arranging them so they would work as a repeat design and I'm really happy with the finished design and love how it looks on all the products, this is just one of them.

You can get this design here!

The second design is something I've been playing with for a while now but I kept making them too detailed so today I decided to sit down and simplify the design and this is what happened, the moment I added the lovely purple the design came alive! Here is just one product showing the design, it's definitely a favourite of mine now.

You can get your paws on this design here!

My redbubble store gets updated monthly so please check out my designs here

To keep up to date on my creative endeavors or just the crazy life I lead check out my instagram, link to the right --->

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN CONTACT ME HERE

ALL MY DESIGNS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE THROUGH MY REDBUBBLE SHOP

Thanks for reading and for the wonderful support I recieve! I'm now off on a well needed holiday for a week (I'm still available to contact)

So have a wonderful end to your August and may the birds sing loudly for you!

BYE!!

Mega Post

Well I haven't posted for a while and a lot has been created so as I was deciding what to include here the list grew longer and longer so I thought I'd just throw it all together. It's going to be a long post but there are lots of pictures, that makes it much more fun than just words! 

If you follow my instagram (link to the right!) You may have seen many of these, if not but you want to keep up with my creatings instagram is my most up to date social media so go check it out!

A while ago I decided that I wanted to have a go at lino printing. Something I'd never actually done myself but seen other people doing it over the years and every time I'd want to give it a go. So I bought myself a starter kit and got cutting. This was actually done on the small test piece of soft lino and came out quite good. I like my little Felix rat.

Lino cutting is something that takes a lot of thought, you not only have to cut out a negative design but you also have to do a mirror image of what you want as the final design. I can definitely recommend it though as it was lots of fun and I hope to spend some time working on more, larger designs soon.

Most of the time though I have been stuck with my normal medium of... watercolours. I'm still addicted and can't really see that changing any time soon!

This included animals I've never drawn before (the raccoon) ratty designs and a velociraptor all of which were lots of fun!

I feel like my brain is torn in two with the two styles I've currently adopted, I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing right now but it's giving me a huge portfolio to work with, something I can't complain about at all. I'm also seeing my work improve lately, I'm not only experimenting more but I'm also being more fluid with my brush strokes.

The ratty designs are also available to buy from my Redbubble shop (link at top of page)

I also tried to play with a silhouette. Of course the galaxy theme had to return for such a thing, I could call this Corvus 2. Silhouettes are not as easy as they seem and keeping a nice crisp line with watercolours can be fun... either that or I'm just too much of a fidget... that wouldn't really surprise me seeing as my workplace lately has been my bed leaning over the paper, wet brush in hand ready to cause chaos. I enjoy working on the crow and he currently sits beside my desk so I like him enough to leave him on show but not sure if it's a style I want to play more with... I prefer to draw eyes...

And then for something completely different... a T-rex skull... on black paper. This was actually a quick sketch whilst I was waiting for my OH to turn up so I didn't spend too much time on it and the effort was lacking as my mind was on other things but it was interesting. I don't think I'd ever appreciated all the holes and textures in skulls before now so that was fun to study for a bit. 

I'm still working on my dinosaur related project so there will be lots more studies like this happening over the next few months... hopefully if I can spare the time!

And then the watercolours returned and the bird nerd got excited. This all happened this week, starting with a list of birds I wanted to paint, I got through half the list because I got so excited.

I doubt I'll ever be able to explain my love of birds and of painting them... it's strange but they are just a delight to look at or interact with.

So as you can imagine, I had a lot of fun working on these! First is the Moorhen with her chicks which I like to call bumble bees, they are ridiculously tiny!!

I also started a quail and a background for another image I had planned which I'm not posting here.

The Californian Quail, now affectionately known as Mr Quail was tough, I was also suffering from a nasty headache that lasted 24 hours so had fun concentrating on him as you can imagine. I know he's not perfect but I have a soft spot for him already. His face and head plumage was fun to work on, I probably spent a good 3 hours on that area to get him how I wanted.

And then today I got challenged to work on Rainbow Lorikeets. These are Australian parrots that wreak havoc but are absolutely awesome. It's also the first time I've used watercolours to paint leaves and flowers... I struggled and it shows which just means I need to practice lots!

I'm very happy with them though and they complete my week of birds. 

The first image is the final piece, the second shows the progress shots I took on the journey through.

A lot of people get the impression that I can just draw the final image instantly like waving a magic wand, this isn't so as the picture shows, my work goes through many stages, some ugly stages before it reaches the end.

The trick to art like anything is to keep going!

So that ends the mega post of creativity... I'm hoping to be a bit more active again. I hit a wall when I failed to hit targets and deadlines and having a few things fall through knocked my confidence, that along with other experiences knocked me for six and I needed a break. I've had that and am now back in business and taking on the world in my usual eccentric ways ;)

If you managed to get through all of this well done, you deserve a cookie! ;) Thanks for reading!

On a final note we got a new housemate for the week whilst her dad is away on holiday. She's a leopard gecko and is quite stunning with her gorgeous markings and those stunning cunning eyes... the mealworms don't stand a chance!

She also has the best reptilian smile I've ever seen :)

Have a Great Day :)

COMMISSIONS - OPEN

Originals of the featured work available, leave a comment if interested.

More stars!

It seems I have become almost obsessed with the stars right now, spending hours looking at the constellation app on my phone, doodling as much as possible, studying galaxy images... I'm not sure what's gotten in to me!

But two more constellations have been added to the mix, this time Chamaeleon (the chameleon constellation) and Vulpecula (the fox constellation)

These were fun but I seemed to lose my technique halfway through and ended up having to lighten them up a lot before adding the stars and animals. Luckily these are done in watercolour, a quick wet brush and towel and paint is lifted with ease!

The thing that drove me insane whilst working on these two was not doing a red fox, painting him blue/purple felt ridiculously wrong! You can see the small splashes of orange where I was desperately wanting to add something :P

These guys will be scanned soon and may end up on my redbubble page :)

And on the mention of redbubble I've added Ursa Major and Corvus to my shop! I have to admit Corvus looks fab on so many products, my favourite has to be this cushion!!

If you're interested in my designs please use the link to my shop at the top of the page! :)

I also managed to complete my raptor designs! And was lucky enough to recieve a surprise voucher from redbubble so me and the OH have ordered our designs for free!!

I'm super excited for them to arrive!

It's always an amazing experience to see your work printed on to a product, whether it's a print or a tshirt. I love it, I love the buzz of joy that zooms through me :)

So the moment these tops arrive I will probably be bouncing off the walls!!

I will be posting more about my raptors before the end of the week including the designs and a bit of an explanation to why they are appearing and taking over my life.

I also have a rather huge project planned which needs to be started over the next few months to be available by the end of the year to early next year, this is currently all I can say on the matter, you know.... just to be annoying!

Now, the sun is out, the birds are singing, I've hit my limit of work for the day! Time to go relax and enjoy the world!

Have a wonderful day!

You didn't save!?

I love using Photoshop for my work, working in both traditional and digital media together has become one of my favourite styles to work in and adds an awesome variety to my working day, I can spend the morning sketching in a pad and the afternoon sat at my laptop, pen and tablet in hand.

That's always nice and freeing. It's always wonderful when you also have many projects on the go as you can just swap files and play around, mistakes are easily fixed with the press of ctrl + z (undo) and layers can be deleted if they're just that little bit too much.

But... and this is a big but... when your laptop decides to mess about and incorrectly save the piece you were working on, losing most of your hard work... you then want to ditch digital and go back to good old fashioned pen and paper!

I had been working on a raptor design for myself (and the OH, he jumped in too) and had put so many hours in... we're talking over 24 hours of work! So you can understand the sheer horror I experienced this morning as I started up Photoshop and tried to open the file that should have been saved as a .psd file... Instead I'm facing a .2 file that will do nothing.

I'm sure my laptop is sniggering to itself right now as I flap about in frustration knowing there's nothing I can actually do to get the file back.

Instead... It's time to start over.

Sure that sounds simple... except I'm currently staying with the OH and left my tablet at home... I'd have to do the painful mouse painting which is possible, after all I learnt to paint in photoshop with a mouse in the first place and am quite confident with the technique but it takes a lot longer to work on, at times doubling work time if not more.

So I need to decide what I'm going to do here, I must stop myself from glaring and growling at the laptop... it was having a fit when I was trying to save the file so I should've known really... not to mention I should have been saving a lot more frequently than I was!

There's a lesson to anybody who wants to get in to digital art! SAVE!! just repeatedly save until you're saving more than working! 

Well not that dramatic but you get what I mean.

Never underestimate the power of that save button. It's a very nice button. It keeps your sanity.

In more cheerful news I've been inspired by looking at bird paintings... Sounds strange but that's me. It's got me craving more traditional work (not brought on by the PS incident...) I haven't done an acrylic painting for quite some time.

The majority of my recent work is graphite on bristol board before being scanned and put in to Photoshop where it goes more digital. As I mentioned earlier this is something I enjoy but I do miss the mess and freedom you can have with good old traditional mediums.

The last real fun I had where I could just be free and do anything was the corvid speed paint challenge I gave myself last year (pictured above).

This challenge was done by giving myself 30 minutes and a very restricted paint palette. For most of these birds I have white and black with a small amount of blue apart from the chough which obviously had red and the jay which had an extra colour of brown.

It was lots of fun and I got messy which is always a good thing!

So seeing this new art work online and then going back over these guys has inspired me to give painting another go. I have colourful and wacky ideas filling my mind and I'm left with this strong urge to splat paint all over the place!

So lots of frustration mixed with fun plotting going on here! 

Really can't complain ;)

It's also my big fluffy dudes 6th Birthday today!!

He's changed in looks so much over the years but oh he's still the puppy he came home as... just a little less psychotic! 

My amazing boy who made me realise I'm a dog person and changed my life in so many ways. I got him for my 20th birthday (Not on a whim! took over a year of prep and thinking before we got him) and we're growing together... I'm 26 in exactly two weeks time! Oh golly gosh...

Time to get working!

Smile and be amazing :)